Good Night Oppy
It’s sad to think that, as a species, we might not be able to live up to the promise of science-fiction since the dawn of the genre, and never achieve manned exploration of the stars beyond our own moon. Don’t get me wrong- that is a remarkable accomplishment as is, and yes, it could theoretically still happen, but it feels as though our species is further away from the shared wonder of the cosmos as we’ve ever been, and we might destroy ourselves before we get to travel beyond the infinite. That is certainly a downer of an opening for an uplifting documentary, but that’s where my mind went after watching Opportunity’s unbelievable 15-year exploration of Mars; is this really going to be as close as we get?
Ryan White’s documentary uses visual effects and actual footage from NASA to tell the story of Opportunity, an Exploratory Rover NASA has sent to Mars for the purpose of searching for signs that the red planet could have had life on it. Opportunity was one of two rovers they sent on this particular mission, with Spirit being the other one. We follow the rovers from development and planning, to launch and exploration. Intended to be a 90-day mission, the rovers last far longer than expected, allowing for a tremendous amount of discovery to be made along the way.
If you don’t think of “Wall-E” while watching this film, you have a stronger will than I do. By using effects to help us follow the rovers on their journeys- although the film focuses on Opportunity for a reason- we’re able to get up close and personal with the routines, the travails, and the sadness of the mission’s eventual end the same way we become invested in Pixar’s cleaning robot. What’s fascinating about the film is seeing how the mission seemed destined to go the way it did from the beginning. There’s a resilience and capability of adaptation to Opportunity that doesn’t necessarily exist in Spirit for some reason, even though that one does what it can. It just seems as though it was destined for Opportunity to be the one to thrive.
One of the truest statements of the film is about how NASA is perceived by the public, and how one can not easily explain the minutiae of the science, but having something like Oppy- as Opportunity comes to be known- gets kids, and the public, excited about what they do. I’ll admit that this is something that I can recognize in myself, as I do not necessarily think about the work they do for us on a regular basis unless they are in the news for something like the Mars rover missions. I do value what they do, however, and how- despite all the challenges in front of them- they look to the stars, in helping us better understand the universe around us. Thank you to Opportunity for being a part of that.
